There was an air of anticipation when Guy Sharrock facilitated a practical and thought provoking workshop for IMA’s London MEL Forum on Evaluative Thinking, last month.  International Alert kindly hosted us; 25 M&E staff from a wide range of NGOs.

The Catholic Relief Service (CRS) where Guy Sharrock is Senior Learning Adviser, has used this process for two years now and as he says, ‘they are just beginning to see its true potential when it comes to doing things differently’.  The participants, and I include myself, could be accused of hoping evaluative thinking (ET) was going to be a magic bullet that would solve our project management issues. However Guy was quick to point out it is not.    He reminded us the real world is messy; ‘what NGOs get funding to do and the reality we deal with are two different things’.  Expect the unexpected and we are closer to what might happen, especially in his view the M&E tools we have are not always fit for purpose.  What we plan for our project and how we implement it can really be quite different.

Development is complex and in turn programme interventions too.  It is the way we respond to these complexities and come up with solutions that is interesting.  With a change of mindset we can listen, observe, learn and adapt better. This is where ET can help us; as it is critical thinking applied to evaluation (or MEAL), which relies on us being inquisitive and acting on a wide variety of evidence.  It involves:
1.identifying assumptions
2.posing thoughtful questions
3.pursuing deeper understanding through reflection and multiple perspective taking and
4.making informed decisions in preparation for action.

In a program evaluation it will include for example the things you may hear, as well as the things you may see, using both informal and informal evaluation evidence.  And definitely involve using checklists!
Guy told us CRS themselves are part way through piloting ET; year one CRS introduced the topic and laid the foundations of Theory of Change modelling; year two they focused on creating learning questions and aligning each question with appropriate methods for addressing them; and, now, in year three, the final year of the pilot, they are concentrating on data and decision making processes.  And what have CRS learned so far?  Well, Guy recommends:

Start small. Initial steps into evaluative thinking should fit easily into the MEAL system.
Identify champions.  People and projects need support  from “top” to “bottom” to build a culture of evaluative thinking.
To question is not to criticize. Evaluative thinking is about figuring out the “why” – not about “right” and “wrong.”
Be comfortable in the unknown. As difficult as it may be, try to suspend the rush to an easy conclusion.
Keep it simple. Tempting to over-think every little problem or possibility, but focus on the “sticky” issues.  

“Evaluative Thinking resonated and made a lot of sense as we are interested to explore ways to be better. We hope to have funding to use ET to help us strategically next year.”
Marie Weiller, International Alert, MEL host and participant.
Thank you Guy Sharrock for this practical introduction to ET

Evaluative Thinking Resources:
Prof. Dave Snowden ‘Cognitive Edge’ videos
Six Hat Thinking by Edward de Bono
The Checklist Manifesto by Dr Atul Gawande - Reith Lectures (2014)
SenseMaker big data software tool that empowers research respondents and much more
Google Docs for making checklists accessible to all your teams across offices